REFUGEES: A tale of two refugees. (Inés Chesini)

A tale of two refugees: torment and agony

DEIR ZANOUN, Lebanon — Both women fled Syria after their normal lives were destroyed in the country’s civil war. Both are desperate to start a new life and see Europe as their best hope. But their fortunes are a world apart.

In the Jordan capital Amman, Amena Abomosa — her husband dead, her mother stricken with cancer — is one of the few lucky ones. She and her family received a rare visa from France and she is packing to fly to Paris today. That allows her to reach her dream without enduring the harrowing sea crossing and land trek that tens of thousands of migrants have endured this year.

In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Rim Helal is willing to risk that arduous, dangerous journey. But, among the poorest of the Syrian refugees across the region, she and her family can’t afford to pay a smuggler.

“We are ready to take risks. We are fed up with life,” said the 25-year-old Helal, sitting on the floor of her tent, her 17-month old son Mohammed in her lap, and husband Ghazi Helal sitting next to her. “Maybe life there is better than here.”

They’ve been living in a tiny make-shift camp for more than three years. Her husband is jobless and their food aid is being reduced. She doesn’t have money to buy medicine for Mohammed, who is suffering from a cold. She says sometimes she feels so miserable she asks herself why she even brought the child into the world.

“We came here (from Syria) thinking that Lebanon is better. It was not,” said Ibrahim Mahmoud who lives in a tent with his wife, three sons and daughter since they fled from the northern province of Aleppo more than three years ago. “I am ready to take risks in the sea even if I die but I have no money.”

War’s rude arrival

In Amman, Abomosa sees hope. The 43-year-old widow, her three kids and her mother were packed days before their flight. Along with photos of her deceased husband and some sand from Damascus as a memento, she’s taking a pile of documents detailing her family’s tragedy and resilience.

The war exploded into the family’s life on July 20, 2012 when a sniper shot her husband, Abdul-Razzaq Mardini, as he stooped to help a child wounded in a street battle in the capital Damascus. The scene was filmed then broadcast on an Arab TV station before going viral.

Soon government forces were knocking on Abomosa’s door, in the middle of the night at times, accusing her dead husband of terrorism, she said. She said they made her sign a document absolving the government of guilt, declaring her husband’s death natural.

On one visit, government troops stormed the house, crushing her beneath the glass and metal front door as they walked across it to enter.

A month later, still recovering from her injuries, she sold her gold jewelry and fled for Jordan, using the money to bribe her way through Syrian checkpoints along the way.

She applied for France’s direct settlement programme. It was a long shot. But with four binders of documents backing her story of her husband’s death, her suffering at the hands of security forces and her mother’s illness, she was convincing in the interview, she said. In February, the embassy told her it would bring her to France, provide health care for her mother, enroll her children in school, help her find work, and, if she wanted, provide for her continued education.

‘I will work, I’m eager’

“A good person is one who gives as much as she takes,” she said. “Educate my children, and in exchange people will become productive and society will take from them. ... I do not want to only take something. I will start my own project, I will work. I’m eager.”

Others see no hope except in the illegal journey. In the Lebanese village of Deir Zanoun, Rima Obeid said she is ready to take the risk. She, her husband and two children struggle to find food and water.

“Whatever God wants will happen and we will die whether here or in the sea,” the 26-year-old said, sitting with her 10-month-old daughter, Waad, in her lap.